Can piranhas really strip a cow to the bone in under a minute?
Piranha are like the pit bull of fish. They are seriously misunderstood and assumed to be the ferocious killing machines that are portrayed on film. In fact, Piranha feed mostly on small fish and dead and decaying carcasses. There have been reported piranha bites to humans, but these are rare.
The red-bellied piranha is the species most well known for its ferocity. This breed is the killing machine of the fish world and is found throughout the Amazon River. There are about 20 species of piranha living in the amazon river, and most of them are harmless. The red-bellied piranha is an exception to this rule. The red-bellied species is one of the most vicious species of fish in the world!
Piranha are most dangerous during the dry seasons when food supplies run low. If they have to, they will feed on small caimans, fallen heron, or a sick and dying cow during this time. Shoals of piranha are usually 20-30 fish, so it is unlikely that they could finish off a dying cow in mere seconds. However, during the dry season when food is scarce and larger shoal of red-bellied piranha accumulate in small pools, they could definitely devour a sick cow in a matter of minutes.
When Theodore Roosevelt went on a hunting expedition in Brazil in 1913, he got his money’s worth. Standing on the bank of the Amazon River, he watched piranhas attack a cow with shocking ferocity. It was a classic scene: water boiling with frenzied piranhas and blood, and after about a minute or two, a skeleton floating to the suddenly calm surface. Roosevelt was horrified, and he wrote quite a bit about the vicious creatures in his 1914 book, “Through the Brazilian Wilderness.” He recounted the stories of townspeople who had been eaten alive, and others who’d lost body parts to piranhas while bathing in the river. “Th
